Hey Folks!
Update v0.15.1.6 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.
This is a hotfix update to our "Across the System" milestone, which includes several fixes to saving and loading, docking, and some initial AI improvements.
Saves from v0.15.0.0 and later should work. Note that if you were experiencing issues in the older save, this patch may fix some, but others may persist depending on the cause.
Note: 📢 indicates changes inspired by community feedback!
The game should no longer hang or CTD on quit after a save.
Autosaves should once again honor the 10-saves-per-captain limit, instead of 10-per-manual-save.
Saving should generally be more reliable now.
Steam Cloud settings on both user level and game level are honored, instead of just the game.
The load and save UIs will now alert the user when Steam Cloud is nearly full.
The load UI will now alert the player if a given Cloud save file is still downloading.
Loading a cloud save that is not finished downloading will now exit gracefully.
Ships docked to multiple other ships and stations should now behave more reliably when docking/undocking.
Docking large ships and multi-ships to stations should no longer collide with the station/asteroid.
Cycling to crew while on multi-docked ships should no longer fail to load docked ships.
Secondary airlocks that were previously docked will once again be uninstallable.
Sending an SOS for a hauler should now correctly dispatch the hauler again.
Ships spawning near Venus will no longer source pilots from OKLG.
It should once again be possible to maneuver while docked to a wreck.
Undocking should have better orientation and fewer collisions now.
Docking UI throttle slider once again works, and shares settings with the NAV UI.
📢Throttle slider now uses an exponential scale instead of linear, so there is more low-end granularity.
Undocking from derelicts with pirates aboard should be less likely to drift away unnecessarily.
NPCs with more than 1 scar should no longer immediately pass-out from pain when arriving on the map, and then die with helmets on.
NPCs with EVA suits should not run out of batteries and O2 as often now.
📢NPCs fleeing rooms without air will now attempt to use transit before the player's ship.
Characters should be better able to pathfind to tasks in room corners now.
It is now possible to resolve emotional clobber events.
📢Buffing weapons will now exclusively prefer using scrap cloth, instead of also allowing clothes.
📢Players can now mark clothes as scrap to also make those usable in weapon buffing.
Freshening up with water at a sink will now complete reliably.
Aging, scarring, arthritis, and smoking should no longer leave occasional permanent stat effects.
Fusion canisters breaking down into scrap will no longer transfer their fuel to the scrap.
Hitting Esc when a new game is loading will no longer result in an uncloseable black screen.
📢Furnishing kiosks will now restock with more lights, alarms, doors, and vents.
Power overlay speed is now in real time, instead of fast-forwarded.
Contaminant scrubber installation footprint has been fixed.
📢Ship editor now starts with Uniques panel closed.
Several null/exception fixes.
This update contains a few major groups of fixes that have been in development and testing a while, so thanks for your patience!
The first was a batch of fixes for saving and cloud sync. A number of issues arose as a result of autosave threading and cloud sync problems, and could cascade into cases of lost or missing saves, and even crashes to desktop.
The fixes and improvements include better monitoring and warnings for cloud storage limits, honoring player cloud save settings in both global Steam and Ostranauts independently, better handling and tracking of threads when saving, and generally smoother save game experiences now.
We also fixed a bug that would reset the autosave limit every time the user manually saved. So it's worth checking your save game list to see if you have more there than you'd expect!
Another group of changes involves the way we dock ships. As we graduated from limited one-to-one docking into many-to-many, we unsurprisingly ran into a number of teething issues.
The last couple weeks have given us a chance to track down and fix most of the issues reported by players in this new system, and it should hopefully mean more stable and consistent behavior when docking, tethering, and towing now.
This patch also includes the first batch of AI QoL changes we are planning.
Specifically, this batch will finally fix the single largest cause of NPC knockouts and deaths on stations: concurrent flare-ups of chronic scar pains. Basically, any NPC with 2 or more chronic scar conditions were usually having both flare-up at the same time the moment they returned to the station (e.g. after hours of being away). These combined flare-ups would cause enough pain to send them into shock, knocking them out on the spot.
And from there, if they were in a pressure suit or EVA with dead batteries, it was only a short while before they suffocated. This patch rebalances some of these effects to be more reasonable and combination-friendly.
Speaking of EVAs, this patch also addresses NPCs in EVA suits running out of battery and O2, by helping them recharge periodically (when they travel between maps). And speaking of *that*, NPCs will now prefer running to transit in oxygen emergencies, instead of onto the player's ship.
There was also a bug which caused AIs to think they couldn't reach corner tiles from a diagonal when the cardinal directions were blocked, which should be fixed now. AIs should now walk to the closest corner instead of all the way outside the room/ship to the other side (or refusing altogether).
We also changed how weapon repairs work, making AI exclusively prefer using scraps, so it will avoid trashing your favorite pair of pants. If you still wish to use clothing as a rag, you can now mark clothes as scrap manually.
And thanks to an eagle-eyed player spotting a duration issue, emotional clobber events can now be resolved if they occur more than 6 minutes apart. (Sorry about that!)
We have a couple other AI changes in the works for next patch, as well, so there's more NPC/crew help coming.
The rest of the changes are more miscellaneous in nature, but should also hopefully mean smoother sailing.
From here until launch, our main goals are to address bugs and quality of life issues in existing features, and finish implementing the content planned for the 1.0 release. If there are major pain points or quality of life suggestions you want to be sure we're aware of, please let us know in the forums, on Discord, or on Reddit.
In the meantime, let us know if this patch helps you out, as well as if it reveals new problems!
Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC